Four Directions

Released: June 17, 2008

Disc: 1 - Instrumentals

1. Banjo Detour

2. Jerry Told Me

3. Canyon De Chelly
4. New Mexico

5. Durango
6. Four Corners
7. Trees

8. Double Banjo Intuition
9. Arkadelphia
10. Train to Kansas City
11. Charley's Not Home
12. Dave's Dance

13. Bix, Claude & Baden

14. Sam Brown's Blues

15. Folk Song USA
16. About the Tunes

Disc: 2 - Songs

1. Three Dreamers

2. One Big Union

3. So Much Dylan

4. Dancing in My Dreams
5. Only a Woman
6. I Met the Blues in Kansas
7. Lucy Ann Rag

8. Blind Gary
9. Sutter's Gold
10. Never Coming Back
11. Nothing But Silence
12. Larimer Street

13. About the Songs

PRAISE

"The all-originals double CD reveals a musical landscape both sonorous and expansive in style, subject matter, time frames, instrumentation and overall alchemy . . . He exhibits a knack for expertly evoking the ambiance of a locale or mood . . . Weissman is an accomplished songwriter as well."
- Gary von Tersch, Sing Out!, April 2009

"He uses a delightful variety of instruments . . . On the songs disc he leaves his contemporaries, and those who've come since, in the dust with his wicked wit, his perfect song construction, and his always-surprising arrangements. This is certainly one of the Don't Miss albums of '08."
- Tom Petersen, Victory Review, January 2009

DESCRIPTION

Four Directions is a double CD, with one album of brand-new original instrumental pieces for banjo, nylon, steel and twelve string guitars, and piano. Chico Schwall, a talented multi-instrumentalist from Eugene, Oregon, adds harmonica, fiddle, and mandolin parts.

The other album consist of 12 songs, written over a 40 year period. Dick sings eight of the songs, and Mary Flower, Tom May, Dan McIlhenny and Anne Weiss sings the others. Noah Peterson plays alto and soprano sax and rub-board. The Robert Zimmerman Memorial Choir assist on Dick's So Much Dylan, a "tribute," to Bob. The subject matter of the songs ranges from songs about various people and places to two songs commissioned by the Oil, Coke, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union.

The last track of each CD consists of humorous or informative stories about the recorded tunes, done in much the way Dick performs them at shows.